Twitter unveils new tools to ‘increase the health of public conversation’

Twitter has confirmed it will begin rolling out a series of long heralded features to selected users over the coming weeks, each designed to "increase the health of public conversation".

Among the measures is an ‘ice breaker’ tool offering members the opportunity to resort to a pre-scripted message they can use to engage fellow users in conversation, with the possibility for this message to be pinned to the top of a profile as a readymade conversation starter.

In a further nudge toward socialising, Twitter will also introduce a signal indicating when an individual is currently online, encouraging back and forth with those individuals in a position to respond in real time.

Finally the social platform will also overhaul threaded replies to simplify the process of replying to a specific tweet within a longer conversation rather than simply joining the herd on the leading edge of the broader discussion.

Twitter has thus far remained tight-lipped on when the functionality will be made available to all members but will be hoping the changes go some way towards improving its reputation as a haven for trolls, which has already led to the roll out of a range of anti-abuse features.